Homeschooling Online goes to the Akron Zoo!

Homeschooling Online Goes To The ZOO!

All right, so it’s a zoo every day around our house… but homeschooling online actually went to the REAL Zoo for Home Educators day this past weekend!

It was really nice. If you live in the Akron, Ohio area - I really suggest checking out the Akron Zoo if you haven’t already. If you didn’t realize that they do a lot of fun things there for homeschool groups in class type settings, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Saturday, we got a chance to head to the Zoo for free - just by registering through an email. We didn’t have to pay to park, then got wristbands for admission at the main entrance. From there we headed to Komodo Kingdom to pick up our home educators pack downstairs. This was rather neat, because they registered us for a few door prizes, gave the kids coupons for free drinks and popcorn, and also gave them tickets for a free train ride. Branden was especially pleased with the small frog pin they gave him for signing up.

They also had the doors open to their downstairs rooms, with information on different things that can be done at the Zoo with homeschoolers. For instance, there is a “sleep-over” at the zoo, where the kids actually get to spend the night there. They do a night hike, have crafts and activities, an animal program, late night snack, continental breakfast, then go on a behind the scenes tour. They get to follow along while the animals are fed. They also make a paper mache craft with food in it for the animals, and then get to watch them tear it open. My boys want to do that before winter, so we’ll probably do the sleep-over for sure.

They also have on ground programs, with 30 students or less - that includes 3 animal ambassadors to study up close, and hands on activities. These classes are aligned with Ohio academic content standards. You can also do guided tours (of which we had one on Saturday that was very informative for the kids) - Zoo School Wednesdays, Home School workshops, and general field trips. It was great to have all of that information neatly packed into a folder for not only the parents, but the kids too. Branden did a lot of out loud reading on the way home, just reading to us in the car from his packet.

Needless to say, the Akron Zoo was absolutely wonderful and gave the kids a super informative time! Here are just a few of our pics from our Zoo trip: